there is something within me that cannot be reasoned with.  i can call it madness, but is a heavy boulder mad?  is a wild creature mad?  whatever is in me just doesn't do what it's supposed to.  it is something that doesn't "get with the program."  we take it as a matter of course that there are things in the outside world that resist us.  but what about when it is within us?

religion, dreams, the metronome-like flailing of a soul trapped... these are all my possible reactions against the dead-weight of this thing...

i plead with it.  i deaden my eyes in an attempt to see something that might spark a motivation within it.  i sleep, hoping that on the morrow, it will have diminished, and i can move forward, freed from its burden.  sometimes these techniques work... at other times...

***

again, we refer to religion.  not the dead religions.  not the religion that others have pantomimed over the centuries.

religion is a repetition of the movement of binding back the wordless, the ineffable, only on our terms.  we confront a wordless thing in a wilderness we have set aside within ourselves, and without ourselves; we make ourselves lose all volition and control so that it may speak in a voice that cannot be ourselves, but still must be relevant to ourselves.  and in this way we convince those other wordless things within and without to adopt a sacred constellation, and move forwards towards some vaunted purpose.

in my sacred constellation, there are real people (most now gone), and possibly unreal beings (or possibly real interpretations of unreal beings), and stubborn principles.  my grandmother, my sister, all of the teachers and friends that i have left behind, miki nakayama, the path through the wildnerness, the poverty of the wanderer, the life of "found" art and blessings, ... and an idea of blood and family, and an unspoken oneness with all people and things.

i speak and plead with aspects of this constellation to get myself to move, but there is a part of me that remains unconvinced.  unconvince-able.  invincible.  i am helpless before it.  my recourse is, as always, to be powerless before it...

***

there is a current schism in my family, and i fear that it will be permanent.  perhaps the faults were always already there, and it only took a small trigger to bring those cracks to the surface.  i apparently tried to bridge these fractures, but perhaps i didn't try too hard; and perhaps, deep down, i didn't even really care.

***

i had an insight, perhaps a flash of self-pity.  there are the winners, and there are the losers.  the winners are the ones with the voice and the power.  they steal the voice of the losers, and step on the faces of the losers to keep them downtrodden.  the daily life of the loser is a tragedy, but it is awash in countless days of tragedy.  and the world looks upon the loser, and says, ah, but that is their lot.

so when, on a fluke, the dog has his day, oh what a mournful day it is for the winner, to feel, for a moment, a reversal of fortune!  and how the world mourns with him!  and how the world comes to look upon the loser with contempt, for it is the loser's one day of victory that has brought sorrow upon the winner!

the loser does not want to play the game.  but perhaps the refusal to play is in itself a ploy, predetermined or not.  the loser has become so accustomed to not playing "with heart", that it is difficult to even know if he was a heart left; if he truly cares about something to put himself at stake.  the loser has adopted a wisdom, that there is something in the world more important than being right.  he does not do things to obtain victory over another; he simply wants- what?  and would he fight for it?

***

the flailing is dying down.  a quiescence must fall upon the soul.  it must play possum another night, and perhaps on the morrow find the bonds that resist him loosened or untied.

***

i will love this world.  i will embrace it.  i will hold this moment.  it will burn me away, but i will hold to it.  and perhaps one day, i will disappear.  there will be no me, and no control, and no resistance either.  there will be...